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From: SecurePoll
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Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 5:19 AM
Subject: SecurePoll Update 8/26/2002 SecurePoll Electronic Voting
Update
By Derek Dictson &
Dan Ray August 26,
2002 What’s
Inside
News
& Updates Switches
cause glitches -- Officials sort out confusion at
polls Diane R.
Stepp Atlanta Journal
Constitution Thursday, August 22,
2002 Georgia -- Sara Lathem,
78, doesn't have a computer at home. Doesn't want one. But that doesn't mean the
Canton retiree isn't looking forward to switching over to the new touch screen
voting machines in November. Before taking her place
in line to vote Tuesday at the Canton fire station, Lathem gave the touch screen
system a quick trial run. Demonstration volunteer
Gail Sams handed Lathem the plastic access card --- just as poll workers will on
Nov. 5 --- and showed her where to insert it into the machine, bringing up a
fictitious sample ballot. Lathem quickly punched in
her pick for Favorite President: John Adams, Famous Georgian: Burt Reynolds, and
Famous Athlete: Bobby Jones. She hit the next screen for amendments, then
touched the "cast ballot" key as the computer recorded her vote.
"Simple," pronounced
Lathem as she headed inside the fire station to circle the ovals and cast her
paper ballot in the primary election. What worries Sams is that
Lathem was one of only a handful of voters who took time Tuesday for a quick
lesson. "Many of them told me
they'd wait until November, or they'd forget how it works," she said. By then it
will be for real and the voting booth is not the ideal place to become
acquainted with casting a ballot you can't hold, punch out a hole in or use a
pen to fill in the oval. "They'll have to have
people to help, but I don't know how they're going to do it because you don't
want others to know how you voted," said Sams. The county elections
office will be stepping up its education campaign this fall to introduce voters
to the new machines, taking them to community centers, churches, clubs,
organizations and senior citizen centers, for instance, said Sams.
Not all voters got a
chance to try the touch screen machines at their polling places Tuesday. Despite
promises that there would be one at each site, only one of five precincts
checked Tuesday had one. The distribution glitch was one of many on Tuesday.
"We have all kinds of
problems with the redistricting. We've been putting out fires all day and the
phone's been ringing off the hook. We're using all our resources to get through
this," said Rhonda Bishop, a clerk in the county elections office.
Cherokee Elections Board
member Donald Sams, who was checking precinct sites Tuesday, said one of the
demonstration machines was supposed to be at the Teasley Middle School polling
site. That didn't happen because the access card to the machine wasn't
programmed correctly, he said. Sixes Elementary poll
worker David Porfolio grimly predicted there would be other problems when the
machines debut in the general election. "The legs on them are so
wobbly, they fall off," he said. He said that's what happened when assembly of
the new machines was demonstrated earlier this summer at the Cherokee Republican
headquarters. "This is just the
beginning of the screwups," Porfolio said. Meanwhile, county
elections supervisor Al Stone had his hands full with minor "screwups" all day
Tuesday. Stone kept a cellphone to his ear troubleshooting everything from irate
candidates who called to complain that their illegally placed campaign signs had
been removed from school yards to sorting out frantic calls from newly trained
poll workers reporting that the colors of their ballots were wrong.
"It's been one of the
roughest election days we've had in a long time," said Stone. Redrawn precinct
lines confused some voters who went to the wrong polling places. Some hadn't
received their new precinct cards from the secretary of state's office, Stone
said. Poll workers at Buffington Elementary were locked out of the building,
delaying poll opening by about 15 minutes. These and other headaches
could crop up in November. Stone is already concerned over the specter of long
lines in November since the number of machines will be substantially reduced, he
said. Ga.
Candidate to Contest Ballots Wed Aug 21,
2002 By MARK
NIESSE Associated Press Writer
Yahoo
News ATLANTA, GA -- Chads, those
little bits of paper that don't fully detach from punch card ballots, could be
an election issue again. College professor Max Burns
won a narrow unofficial victory over Barbara Dooley in Tuesday's 12th
Congressional District Republican primary, setting up a recount.
Dooley's campaign now plans
to contest the district's paper ballots, lever voting machines and punch card
ballots — the source of Florida's infamous hanging, swinging and dimpled chads.
Georgia purchased
touch-screen voting machines for $54 million, but the 12th District used its
older methods because the secretary of state's office didn't have enough time to
install all 19,015 machines across the state before the primary, said
spokeswoman Kara Sinkule. They will be ready for the general election Nov. 5.
"We do need those modern
voting machines, and it's high time," Dooley campaign manager Clint Murphy said.
"Shame on our secretary of state for not having them in place by now."
During the 2000 presidential
election, thousands of Florida ballots were submitted with misplaced chads,
complicated the recount as President Bush ( news - web sites) won a razor-thin
victory statewide. With all 234 precincts
reporting, Burns had 13,915 votes, or 50.5 percent, according to unofficial
returns compiled by The Associated Press. Dooley had 13,641 votes, or 49.5
percent. That's a difference of only
274 votes, and candidates are entitled to an automatic recount if the margin is
less than 1 percent. The results will not be
official until later this week or next week, and the re-count would not start
until after that. Burns does not think the
re-count will change the results. "We learned a lesson in the
last election cycle in Florida," Burns said. "I'm convinced and I'm confident
that our poll workers did their jobs in a professional manner and there won't be
any problems." Aug. 6 ballot
problems alleged - Clay, Barton county candidates seek review of races
The Associated Press
Thursday, August 22, 2002
Kansas -- The discovery of a
computer glitch reversed one outcome from this month's primary elections in
Kansas, and an unsuccessful candidate in another race has based his request for
a special election on technical difficulties that allegedly occurred in his
race. In Clay County, computer
results from a county commission primary had challenger Roy Jennings defeating
incumbent Jerry Mayo by 22 votes. The hand recount, completed
Tuesday, revealed Mayo as the winner — and by a landslide, 540 votes to
175. In one ward, which Mayo
carried 242-78, the computer had mistakenly reversed the totals. And in the
absentee voting, which originally showed a 47-44 edge for Jennings, a hand count
found Mayo winning 72-19. "I'm sorry everyone had to
go through that, but glad to see the will of the voters carried through," Mayo
said. Jennings, whose attorneys
walked out of Tuesday's election panel hearing, said he had reservations about
the recount. "The ballots and counting
machine and program chip were open to anyone with access to the (county) clerk's
office, mostly active opponents to my campaign," Jennings
said. And in Great Bend, a fossil
hunter who sought a seat in the state Legislature is seeking a special election,
alleging problems with a machine that scans ballots opened the door for possible
tampering. Alan Detrich lost his GOP
primary bid for the 112th District seat to the incumbent, Rep. John Edmonds of
Great Bend, by a margin of 2 to 1. Detrich, also of Great Bend,
wrote to Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall and Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh on
Monday with concerns about how ballots were handled on election
night. "I have no evidence that any
ballots were tampered with, but the fact that the ballot boxes were outside
Barton County for approximately five hours in two separate vehicles with unknown
occupants raises serious questions," Detrich wrote. Plan
adopted to split funds for switch to touch-screen
voting By Ed
Fletcher Sacramento Bee Capitol
Bureau Thursday, August 22,
2002 California has edged closer
to Florida-proofing its elections with the acceptance of a plan to distribute
$200 million to modernize voting. The money will be helpful
across the state but is particularly beneficial to the nine counties --
including Sacramento -- that state election officials say must replace their
voting equipment. County elections officials
say it's no stretch to pin the jump-started election reforms on the botched 2000
Florida election. "Everything we are doing in
terms of election reform is a result of Florida," said Ernest Hawkins, registrar
of voters for Sacramento County. Facing a California court
challenge to the voting systems used in the troubled Florida election, Secretary
of State Bill Jones announced in December that the nine counties using prescored
punch-card ballots must replace them by July 2005. Switching the voting systems
used in nine counties is no small task. The nine are home to half the state's
voters. But the Voting Modernization
Bond Act will make the process easier. Passed in March, the bond act will help
fund new touchscreen voting machines across the state. The state will provide a
3-to-1 match on county purchases of approved equipment. The state plan for
distributing its voting modernization money weighs the number of eligible
voters, the number of registered voters, the average turnout for the last four
elections and the number of polling places. The "blended formula" was a
way to try to satisfy the broadest number of counties. The board also capped the
state's contribution to voting machines at $3,000 per
machine. The next step in the process
is for counties to submit a request for funding consideration, to be accompanied
by a non-binding resolution from county supervisors. Counties will then have more
time before they are asked to submit a more detailed
application. The money is important, but
county officials also have to do the legwork to make touch-screen voting happen
without losing electronic votes along the way. "It's a big job," said
Bradley Clark, registrar of voters for Alameda County. "Changing voting systems
is like taking everything you have done and throwing it
out." Sacramento County residents
will be able to try out touchscreen machines and cast live ballots weeks before
the November election at six locations around town. Early voting will help the
county decide on a vendor for the voting machines. El Dorado County won't be
pushing as hard. The county uses Datavote, an optical scan system still
certified for use. Some counties might not be
asking for money. Vicki Frazier, registrar of
voters for Del Norte County, asked the Board of Supervisors to consider the
matter, but she said she is not pushing it. The Datavote system also in use
there is working well, she said. Only two California counties
-- Riverside and Plumas -- have used used touch-screen voting for a major
election. A handful of others have tested the technology in smaller
elections. That will be changing
soon. In addition to the state
funds, federal help may also be on the way. House and Senate negotiators are
trying to meld election reform packages that promise new election money and
requirements. "In the next few years, you will see the bulk of the counties
voting electronically," Hawkins said. "All because of
Florida." Assistant Secretary Of State Joins Sequoia Voting Systems Alfred J. Charles will help
Sequoia’s clients design and execute successful voter education programs as the
company’s Director of Public Affairs Aug. 22,
2002 OAKLAND, Calif. ― One of
California’s top election officials is departing the Secretary of State’s office
to join Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems, the nation’s most experienced
provider of touch screen voting machines.
Alfred J. Charles,
California’s Assistant Secretary of State for Communications and eGovernment,
will become Sequoia’s Director of Public Affairs on Sept.
9. “We are very pleased that a
senior advisor to Secretary of State Bill Jones will be joining our team,” said
Peter Cosgrove, Sequoia’s president and chief executive officer. “Alfie not only
has unparalleled expertise in California election law, but in supervising
successful voter education and outreach programs. His insights and expertise
will prove quite valuable to Sequoia’s current and future clients across
California.”
Charles joins Sequoia
following a seven-year career with the Secretary of State’s office in which he
chaired the California Internet Voting Task Force and drafted California’s
digital signature regulations. He also counseled Secretary of State Bill Jones
on a number of election policy issues, including voter access issues involving
computers and the viability of Internet voting.
“It is apparent that
Internet voting is a technology whose time has not come,” Charles said. “For large jurisdictions needing to
upgrade their voting equipment, touch screen voting clearly represents the
easiest, most reliable and unambiguous method of conducting elections today and
for the foreseeable future. Sequoia
has not only gained more experience than any other company in touch screen
technology, but, by all accounts, has an unrivalled history of working with
counties to conduct successful elections with state-of-the-art technology.
That’s a track record I can be proud of and I look forward to helping Sequoia
and its customers continue to improve their voting
systems.” Before joining the Secretary
of State’s office in 1995, Charles honed his voter outreach skills by managing
several high-profile political campaigns, including the landmark Three Strikes
and You’re Out initiative, which he supervised while working as an account
manager for Cavalier & Associates, a Sacramento-based public relations firm.
He also coordinated California media activities for Arizona Sen. John McCain’s
presidential campaign in 2000.
Charles earned a Bachelor of
Science degree from California State University, Sacramento, where he majored in
government and minored in history and philosophy. Charles lives in Elk Grove
with his wife, Kristin, and their children. Charles is the second
high-ranking public official Sequoia has added to its election management team
hired during the past year. Last summer, the company hired Santa Clara County’s
Registrar Kathryn Ferguson as its Vice President of Governmental Relations and
Public Affairs. Ferguson was previously Registrar of Clark County (Las Vegas),
Nevada, from 1993 to 1999; and Bexar County (San Antonio), Texas, from 1991 to
1993. With a computer science background, she has also served on numerous voting
reform committees and panels,
including the California Secretary of State’s Voting System Certification
Advisory Panel. Ferguson was the
chairman of The Election Center’s
Voting Technology Committee at its inception in early
1999. A pioneer in voting reform,
Ferguson initiated and managed Clark County’s 1994 conversion from punch cards
to full face electronic voting machines, fully six years before Florida’s voting
problems in the 2000 presidential election highlighted the need for electronic
voting systems across the country.
The electronic early voting program she put into place there was the
first of its kind and has become a national model for electronic early voting
programs. More of Clark County’s
voters now vote early than vote on Election Day, and the county’s absentee
voting numbers have held steady rather than increasing exponentially like
California’s have done.
Oakland, California-based
Sequoia is the nation’s most experienced provider of Direct Record Electronic
(DRE) technology, with an installed base of more than 35,000 full face and touch
screen voting machines in 16 states, including Riverside County, California and
Palm Beach, Pinellas, Hillsborough and Indian River counties in
Florida. Sequoia Voting Systems is a
subsidiary of Hampshire, England-based De La Rue, a leading worldwide provider
of tamperproof government documents and secure cash processing technologies. De
La Rue’s accurate cash-counting mechanisms are used by one fifth of the world’s
ATMs and more than 2,000 financial institutions in 60 countries rely on De La
Rue to secure their transactions. De La Rue applies the same commitment to
accuracy and integrity to the election business through Sequoia Voting
Systems. The companies invite you
to visit their respective websites at www.sequoiavote.com and
www.delarue.com New
machines hit snags in Tuesday tryouts By MICHAEL PEARSON
Atlanta
Journal-Constitution Georgia -- Software problems
and human error prevented some voters in Tuesday's primary from trying out
Georgia's new touch-screen election system. State officials promise the
problems should be fixed before the statewide rollout in November. And they
pointed out that the machines worked well in Hall and Marion counties, the only
counties where real votes were recorded electronically on
Tuesday. In Fulton County, at least
11 percent of the touch-screen machines failed. Some froze up like balky home
computers, while others got stuck in a mode that effectively locked up the
machines, said Gloria Champion, the county's director of registrations and
elections. No one was denied the right to vote because the machines were only
being demonstrated for interested voters. The real votes were cast on punch
cards. Chris Riggall, a spokesman
for the secretary of state's office, attributed the problems to errors by poll
workers, a glitch in the Windows operating system that runs the machines and
problems with electronic cards that replace paper ballots and ballot
boxes. Riggall said an extensive
training program for poll workers, a planned software upgrade and ample
technical support on Election Day should hold problems to a minimum. The
training and software upgrade already had occurred in Hall and Marion counties,
where actual electronic voting was near- flawless. "Certainly the best measure
of the performance we expect was in the two counties where we were configured to
actually hold an election," Riggall said. Hall County elections chief
Anne Phillips said she was thrilled with the system. "We had a really good day,"
she said. But Fulton County officials
said they still worry there isn't time to ensure a smooth Election Day.
Commissioner Bob Fulton, a Georgia Tech engineering professor, likened the
planned November debut to the liftoff of an unproven
rocket. "Once it launches, you don't
have many options," he said. The state purchased 19,015
of the touch-screen machines in May to replace a patchwork of older systems and
head off a repeat of the 2000 presidential election, in which old technologies
complicated tabulation of an already close vote. Each of the state's 2,823
voting precincts got one of the machines for voters to try out on Tuesday as
part of the secretary of state office's ongoing voter education
campaign. The most common problem was
untrained poll workers unintentionally starting the machines in "election mode"
instead of "demonstration mode," Riggall said. The access cards needed to
display ballots on the machines weren't programmed to work in election mode, and
poll workers weren't equipped to override the strict controls placed on machines
in that mode. In Fulton, poll workers also
reported the machines mysteriously switching from demonstration mode to election
mode, Champion said. But state election officials and the company that makes the
machines, Diebold Election Systems of Ohio, said that's virtually impossible and
instead suggest untrained workers were to blame. "It's very difficult to
create a problem with it, but sometimes they do it," said Mark Radke, Diebold's
director of the voting programs. The only other reported
problem, Riggall said, was power cords improperly attached to the
machines. Diebold officials say its
machines have been used in elections in Maryland, Virginia, Indiana and
California with few reported problems. Just to make sure, the
Ohio-based company will send 387 support employees to Georgia on Nov. 5,
including one roving technical support worker for every 30 precincts. Poll
workers will be trained after the Sept. 10 runoff elections and will also have
the benefit of a toll-free support line for immediate help, Riggall
said. Martin
election officials discount glitch By PAT
MOORE Palm Beach
Post Friday, August 23,
2002 STUART, FL -- Martin County
elections officials conceded Thursday their touch-screen voting machines are
capable of making the same error discovered this week in Palm Beach
County. During a demonstration
Tuesday, critics of Palm Beach County's new touch-screen machines showed that
voters could incorrectly select a candidate when more than two names appeared in
a race. The machine would select the
middle candidate when the user simultaneously pressed boxes next to names listed
before and after that candidate's name on the screen. Martin County elections
officials said Tuesday it was "impossible" for their machines, which are from a
different manufacturer than those in Palm Beach County, to make the same
mistake. But two Palm Beach Post
reporters who voted in Martin County Thursday were able to duplicate the
problem. Martin County Elections
Supervisor Peggy Robbins later Thursday defended the machines, which are being
used for early voting through the Sept. 10 primary. Voters who accidentally cast
an incorrect vote for any reason have several opportunities to correct the
selection with a single touch of finger before the final votes are cast
electronically, Robbins said. "I don't think there will be
any problems," she said. The Palm Beach County
demonstration was conducted by critics of the touch-screen machines who claim
the electronic voting is flawed. Former Boca Raton Mayor Emil
Danciu, who finished third in a four-candidate race March 12, filed suit,
claiming the election was marred by computer problems. He said voters who tried to
vote for him couldn't make check marks appear next to his name on the touch
screen. Robbins said she's confident
Martin County voters will have no problems changing their minds and recasting a
vote if they initially make an incorrect selection. "It's very, very easy to see
which candidate was selected," she said, noting the candidate's name lights up
when selected. If a voter chooses a
candidate by mistake -- for any reason -- all the voter has to do is touch the
box next to the correct candidate's name and the vote will change, she
said. All voters are required to
review the names of all of their choices before they are allowed to cast their
final votes. If a mistake was made, the
voter still has the opportunity to touch the incorrect name and change the
vote. "There are so many ways of
changing your mind or correcting your vote before you cast the final votes," she
said. Early voting for Martin
County's primary began Monday, and Robbins said no one has reported any
confusion. Martin County spent more
than $2 million to buy 300 machines from Election Systems and Software Inc. in
Nebraska after Florida's infamous voting problems during the 2000 presidential
election. Palm Beach spent $14.4
million to buy its machines from Sequoia Voting Systems. Robbins said Martin County
voters, who have used lever voting machines for years, will find similarities in
the new electronic machines. "Voters are used to pulling
down a lever and looking at an X next to the candidate's name, so they're
familiar with that appearance," she said. Even with the old machines,
Martin County voters who mistakenly voted for one candidate could correct their
vote by lifting the lever and pulling down the correct one, she
said. "The votes are not cast
until the red button is mashed," she said of the touch-tone screens. "On the old
machines, the votes were not cast until they pulled the red
knob." Click here to change or remove your subscription |